Founder Thesis

When it comes to innovation, India has come a long way. But there is still a lot to be achieved!In this edition of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Vidit Jain and Shridhar Gupta, Founders, LocoNav. They have worked together at ClearTax before starting with their entrepreneurial journey.Intrigued by the complex nature of the fleet management business and to make the life of fleet owners easy, Vidit and Shridhar founded LocoNav in 2016, with a mission to democratise access to cutting-edge technology for commercial fleet management. And today LocoNav is operational in 25 countries and is backed by global tech leaders like Anand Chandrasekaran and Ajay Agarwal.Tune in to this episode to hear Vidit and Shridhar speak about how LocoNav is streamlining the fleet management industry by providing AI and IoT-led innovative offerings.What you must not miss!The pivot from freight marketplace to a transport tech ventureScaling-up and fundraising journeyThe unique product portfolio

‘Karna hai, toh karna hai!’ – This is one mantra that our guest today lives by!In this edition of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Sasidhar Nandigam, Co-founder and CEO, CredR, an omnichannel platform for buying and selling used two-wheelers.With more than a decade of experience with various venture capitalist funds, his eureka moment came when he had an unpleasant experience in buying a second-hand bike. He, along with his co-founder, Nikhil Jain, started CredR in 2015, with a mission to make personal mobility reasonable and cost-effective, which today is the country’s most trusted marketplace for used two-wheelers with a presence across seven cities in India.Tune in to this episode to hear Sasidhar speak about how CredR is formalising the fragmented used two-wheeler market and changing the way customers buy, sell and trade used two-wheelers.What you must not miss!Nothing replaces hard work and commitmentConsumer insights are the foundation of any businessHow does owning the entire value chain improve customer experience?

With a huge market opportunity to grab, it’s a golden age for digital-first businesses. And with plans to accelerate growth for the digital-first economy is Klub.In this edition of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Anurakt Jain, Co-founder and CEO, Klub, a Bengaluru-based start-up that is pioneering revenue-based financing in India.Anurakt, a graduate of IIT Delhi and The Wharton School, has extensive professional experience as a venture capitalist. In his previous stint, he worked with InMobi, as a part of the founding team that established Glance and TruFactor. He founded Klub in 2020, whose unique and flexible revenue-based finance approach matches entrepreneurs with the right capital partners, thereby allowing them to focus on driving business growth.Tune in to this episode to hear Anurakt speak about how Klub is challenging the traditional modes of equity and debt capital and revolutionizing growth capital for digital-first businesses.What you must not miss!Learnings from his experience as an intrapreneurCultural tenets of KlubHow to build a team of super-achievers?

The universe is made up of stories, where everyone is a storyteller.In this edition of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Ranjeet Pratap Singh, Co-founder and CEO, Pratilipi. He is an alumnus of FMS, Delhi and has worked with Vodafone before starting off with his entrepreneurial journey.Belonging to a modest background, Ranjeet has always been a voracious reader and preferred reading content in Hindi. However, he found it extremely difficult to get the books of his choice online, since most of the websites had English content.To bridge this gap, Ranjeet launched Pratilipi in 2015, as a storytelling platform, primarily focussing on Indian languages, thereby allowing people to share the stories in the language of their choice. And today, Pratilipi is India’s largest vernacular storytelling platform with over 350,000 writers and 28 million monthly active readers in 12 languages.Tune in to this episode to hear Ranjeet speak about how Pratilipi is opening the gateway to vernacular literature and making it easily available for the readers.What you must not miss!The power of User Generated ContentMonetization strategyGrowth hack: Simplify your productPlans for expanding into different geographies

It’s 2022! By now, everyone knows that FinTech has taken India by storm and fascinating things will happen when such disruptive technology finds its applications in other sectors.In this edition of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Chris George, Co-founder and CEO, Qube Health.A serial entrepreneur and an alumnus of NYU’s Stern School of Business, Chris started his entrepreneurial journey at the young age of sixteen. He briefly worked in the USA and came back to India to start his venture, something which he describes as his ‘Swades moment’. Through his personal experiences, Chris identified the gap between healthcare expenses and what all insurance pays for! He started Qube Health in 2019, which aims to aggregate FinTech and Healthcare to streamline employee healthcare management by providing primary care, health screening and other non-insurance healthcare services through a single platform.Tune in to this episode to hear Chris talk about how Qube Health is simplifying and changing the way people pay for their healthcare in India.What you must not miss!Chris’ entrepreneurial journeyHis experience of working in the USAQube Health’s fundraising journey and subsequent plans for expansion.

Thanks to COVID, Creators’ economy has boomed in the past two years. Worldwide, there are more than fifty million creators. But most of them do not get paid.In this edition of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Nipun Goyal, Founder and CEO, LikeMinds. He is a serial entrepreneur who has worked in corporate before venturing on this journey.An alumnus of IIT Delhi, Nipun launched his first venture while in college. In 2014, he started Curofy, a networking app that enables the communication between doctors. Post its acquisition, he started working with community entrepreneurs and founded LikeMinds in 2020, with a mission to assist creators in managing and monetizing their communities.Tune in to this episode to hear Nipun talk about how LikeMinds is fuelling India’s Creator Economy to the next level with its simple and easy-to-use SaaS platform.What you must not miss!Experience of being a second-time founder.Why online communities are important?Mission 2025 for LikeMinds

In this era of start-ups in India, invention, innovation, and disruption have become a reality.Founder Thesis presents you the journey of one such duo of techies who are on a mission to enable robots with human-like vision, which could unlock endless possibilities.In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Nikhil Ramaswamy and Gokul NA, Founders, CynLR, have taken us through their journeys. Nikhil was an urban boy inspired by tech revolutions while Gokul saw automation challenges at a farm & studied the impact of code on real life. After gaining experience at National Instruments, they started CynLR in 2019 and has solved 70+ industrial machine vision problems with a 100% success rate, putting it on an exponential growth trajectory.Tune in to this episode to hear Nikhil and Gokul explain cybernetics, what the future will be with robots and how it will alter the business landscape.What you must not miss!The challenges to improving Machine Vision.The Paradigm Shift in Robot systems Design.Scalability & Expansion of the CynLR Platform.

Is first mover really an advantage!In this episode of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Abhinav Sinha, Co-founder, Eko India Financial Services, a company that envisioned the innovations FinTech brought in recent years, more than a decade ago.Eko started operations in 2007 with an aim to bring banking to consumers 24X7 through a network of business correspondents. After numerous pivots and adapting to the ever-evolving market, today Eko has a vast chain of merchant outlets to provide banking services, especially to the economically weaker sections of the society.Tune in to this episode to hear Abhinav speak about how Eko is working towards making financial inclusion a reality in India.What you must not miss!The pilot that got funded by Gates Foundation.The journey from USSD to an app-based platform.Survival tip: Keep pivoting!

Passion, patience, and perseverance are the ingredients to be a successful entrepreneur.In this episode of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Rashi Narang, Founder and Creative Director, Heads Up For Tails (HUFT), whose entrepreneurial journey is nothing but perseverance and grit.Rashi, an ardent animal lover, found her calling when she realized that the Indian market has nothing to offer when it came to pet care. She started Heads Up For Tails in 2008 and after numerous rejections from various retailers, today HUFT is the largest D2C brand in the pet care segment backed by Verlinvest and Sequoia Capital.Tune in to this episode to hear Rashi speak about how Heads Up For Tails is leading the pet care space in India and making pet parenting a delightful experience.What you must not miss!Diversification during COVIDDrivers for online expansionWorking around changing the mindset towards animals.

"This monthly salary is nothing but a trap... you need to come out of this comfort... take some risk."This powerful statement from Amit Agarwal captures the core dilemma for many successful professionals dreaming of entrepreneurship. It’s a call to action to escape the "golden handcuffs" of a stable, high-paying job and embrace the uncertainty of building something new, a leap Amit himself took to create a billion-dollar company.Amit Kumar Agarwal is the co-founder and CEO of NoBroker.com, India's first proptech unicorn. An alumnus of IIT Kanpur and IIM Ahmedabad , Amit left a lucrative career in management consulting and banking to solve a problem he had personally faced. Today, NoBroker is valued at over $1 billion , has raised more than $361 million , serves over 30 million customers , and has saved them over ₹1,100 crores in brokerage fees.Key Insights from the Conversation: Disrupting Information Asymmetry: NoBroker's core mission was to eliminate the real estate broker, who thrived on controlling information, and create a transparent peer-to-peer (C2C) marketplace. The Ecosystem Flywheel: The company strategically evolved from a simple listings platform to a full-stack ecosystem offering payments, home loans, and home services. This move was critical for retaining users and increasing their lifetime value. A Contrarian Approach to Growth: Unlike many startups, NoBroker focused on a deliberate "market deepening" strategy rather than a rapid "land grab" across cities. They also chose to monetize relatively early, establishing revenue as a key metric from the beginning. Forged in Adversity: The company's resilient and frugal "cockroach mentality" was shaped by early struggles, including facing over 20 VC rejections and physical attacks from incensed brokers. Technology as the Moat: NoBroker’s competitive advantage is built on technology, particularly its proprietary AI-powered algorithm that detects and blocks brokers from the platform, ensuring the integrity of its C2C model.Chapters:[00:28] The Formative Years: From a Civil Servant's Son to an IIT Topper[07:08] The Consulting Grind & The "Golden Handcuff" of Corporate Life[12:25] The Entrepreneurial Leap: Why Quitting a Cushy Job is the Biggest Risk[17:51] The "No Broker" Idea: Solving a Uniquely Indian Problem[23:00] Early Days & The Wall of Rejection[28:26] The First Cheque & The "Cockroach Mentality"[38:54] The Monetization Playbook: Convincing Indians to Pay[41:14] The Ecosystem Flywheel: From Listings to a Full-Stack Platform[58:21] NoBrokerHood & The B2B2C Play[1:01:13] The Vision Ahead: Becoming a Household NameHashtags:#FounderThesis #AmitAgarwal #NoBroker #Startup #Entrepreneurship #Unicorn #Proptech #RealEstateIndia #VentureCapital #DisruptiveInnovation #BusinessStrategy #Scaling #IIT #IIM #IndianStartup